The permits to renovate and restore the iconic Hibernia Bank building at 1 Jones Street have been issued and the scaffolding is finally starting to rise. And a new Mid-Market “club” could be on the way.

The planned exterior work to the building includes the enlargement of three window openings to create new exit doors along Jones and McAllister, the removal of portions of the existing wrought iron gate, and the rehabilitation of the remaining windows, steel roll-up security grilles and granite.

Within the building, new shear walls and an elevator will be installed, portions of the existing teller counter will be removed and stored on site, and “character-defining features” and materials such as the extensive decorative marble, plaster, and stained glass will be protected in place and cleaned and repaired as necessary.

And while the Dolmen Group has been rather tight-lipped about their timing and plans for the building which they purchased for just under $4 million in 2008, if one of the major permits issued for the project is correct, the future use for the building has been categorized as: “Nite Club.”

A call for comment from Dolmen has yet to be returned, but we’ll keep you posted and plugged in.

Interesting – I noticed also that the Renoir Hotel across the street has closed. Does anybody know what the plans are for that? Add that to the Market Street Cinema plans and the other buildings right there on Market that are being cleaned up and repurposed.

Now if only San Francisco could run check cashing businesses out of neighborhoods…

But you’ll need check cashing places for venues that will only take cash because their rents will be so high they will want to conceal their income for tax evasion purposes. ATM’s will be broken into in that stretch. The Hibernia should be re-repurposed as a —BANK! We’ve returned to the Gilded Age, so let’s celebrate it with The Bank of Google.

Please no Equinox gym a la the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Better than rotting away, but let’s see something which contributes more to a great street. If Jones traffic turned on McAllister (not Market) could convert street space by Renoir and this building to great pedestrian plaza.

Gentrification! Let’s fight against the displacement of pigeons who have been there for at least 12 generations! Where will they live? It is THEIR home.
Plus this is the loss of a significant cultural artifact. By culture I mean Urine-fed fungi culture, naturally. It takes some strong fungus, believe me…

I say we need a proposition to stop this improvement thing from spinning out of control. What’s next? Allowing pedestrians to walk mid market without witnessing anything repulsive, dangerous or illegal? What a shame.

What if the Battery private club is moving? Dread. You know, the one that curates humans?

“We want diversity in every sense of the word,” said Xochi, citing gender and ethnicity as being among the factors they will take into consideration when approving members for the club. “I view it as us trying to trying to curate a community”.

Xochi crazy lady — the community is the City not your creepy club. Go outside, look around – if you don’t like the club outside — go to the old world where we all emigrated from.

Ok it was just a momentary dreadful thought that they could moving to monopolize and curate the screenworkers nearby.

This is good new for the Tenderloin and good news for San Francisco. The huge number of social services, drug distributors and other “resources” in the Tenderloin draws addicts, alcoholics, people with mental illnesses, and homeless folk from the Bay Area and the state and well beyond. Sometimes, as is well known, they are send on one-way tickets by unscrupulous agencies in other jurisdictions.

Although they are often unfairly portrayed as helpless victims, in fact they are neither stupid nor ignorant. They come here because they will be welcome, and will continue to come as long as the facilities remain. If the services should increase, there will be more clients. Every small improvement, such as the rehabilitation of the Hibernia Bank, contributes to a contraction in the size of the largest piece of American urban real estate devoted to this purpose.

Nothing can be done to overcome the political opposition to a comprehensive policy to gentrify the Tenderloin, but bit by bit over the next fifty years or so, it will return to its original intended use as part of downtown.

I have my concerns the historic preservation commission might tag the years of past inhabitants as somehow “significant and historic”, i.e. drug dealers, druggies,drunks,deranged….etc. Maybe they just insist on a statue of former supervisor Chris Daly looking skyward hand stretched out with a huddle of druggies,drunks,deranged….etc curling up around his feet.

Could even be interactive. Touch a button and out sprays a wiff or O`de Daly that charming smell of stale urine we all have grown accustom to walking when down that stretch of Market street.

here here conifer! could not agree more. the glide food line is a perfect example. while their intentions are without a doubt very noble, are they really helping the people who line up for food three times a day improve their lives? i think not.

Wait, it’s just going to be renovated, without expansion (i.e., no tower or anything above)? A waste of potential density at this prime location, if so. (disclaimer – I’m in Manhattan this week so am viewing our little village on the bay though the lens of exciting Midtown highrises…)

I’ll be happy to see the building renovated, and a nightclub/entertainment complex is a great use of a beautifully restored building like this. In this case, I think a restoration is preferable to the facadism of building a tower.